


Video Village

by ballroompink



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Character Death Fix, Gen, Jim "Chief" Hopper Lives, Post-Canon Fix-It, Small Towns, VHS rentals, film snobbery, inexplicably attractive magnum p.i. shirts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 12:36:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19992319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballroompink/pseuds/ballroompink
Summary: Robin really enjoys working at Family Video.





	Video Village

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RabbitRunnah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RabbitRunnah/gifts).



Until last summer, Robin thought Hawkins, Indiana, was the most boring town in America, maybe in the world. She certainly was keen to get out of this place as soon as she could. 

In the last year, things had gotten a bit more interesting. Finding out not only were the Soviets beneath the Starcourt Mall and that there were supernatural forces involved kind of blew her mind. She also made a best friend; maybe that she, lead clarinetist for the Hawkins High School Marching Band, now was best friends with King Steve Harrington was the most unbelievable thing of all.

Now that the mall was gone, the The Palace Arcade had resumed being the hub of most teenage life in Hawkins and the adjoining Family Video was reaping the benefits, especially now that so many families in Hawkins had bought VCRs. There was even talk of putting in a pizza place next door. (Keith was really excited about that.) 

Still, there was a lot of downtime and she and Steve took full advantage of it when they shared shifts. They invented their own little games, ate a lot of junk food and she helped him with his film education because they could play pretty much whatever they wanted on the circuit televisions. While Keith was partial to playing “Repo Man” over and over again when he had control, she liked to use her power to help not just Steve, but the video-renting community of Hawkins. One week, she only screens classic screwball comedies, another week it’s only samurai pictures – Steve really dug those.

She and Steve hung out and she made him watch “Hidden Fortress,” and he ended up liking it a lot. He couldn’t stop talking about it for weeks. He even got Dustin to watch it who then showed it to the rest of the party.

Her power was not limited to the circuit televisions, she also got Keith to approve her own shelf of recommendations. Robin kept track of those who chose from shelf, and would ask if they liked it when they came back.

Sure, most of the rentals were your basic choices – “Sixteen Candles,” “48 HRS,” “Footloose, “Porky’s” – if she had to rent out another copy of “Porky’s” she was going to lose her goddamn mind! 

Steve’s children were more inclined to heed her advice. When Max came in one night for “The Outsiders” for her sleepover at El’s, she suggested she also check out “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains” and one of her favorites from when she was her age, “A Little Romance.” Another time, El came in on her own and she implored her to check out “Nausicaä” and “The Last Unicorn” along with renting “The Karate Kid” yet again. God, those girls sure loved Ralph Macchio … Eleven even came back a week later to return them and confided in her how she cried watching them. She wasn’t mad about it really, she liked them. Robin was delighted and slipped her a strawberry Twizzler from her stash and pushed her to check out “Born Yesterday,” The Red Shoes” and “Roman Holiday.” She got the nerd boys into “Time Bandits” and “Night of the Comet.” They mostly wanted to watch “WarGames” and “The Thing” over and over again, and she wished they’d just bug their moms to buy a copy and spare her. 

Several other townsfolk would pick out a few from her shelf. Her old science teacher, Mr. Clarke, and his cute girlfriend – way to go Mr. Clarke! – would come in every few weeks and sure he would first venture over to the science fiction section, but he would either let her pick or they would compromise on something. They had rave reviews of “Starman.” Joyce and Chief Hopper came in only a few times, they were so busy with work and they rarely had time alone or opportunity to get control of their VCR considering how many teenagers ran in and out of their small, cramped but loving home; they liked “Coming Home” and movies with James Garner. “Breaking Away” continued to be a top rental in 1985.

Steve was a pretty cool dude. He was generally nice. He really tried to make amends for being a jerk in the past. She briefly thought he was really into karma. He was even helping Keith deal with own shortcomings with the ladies, and some of his acne started to clear up. He even tried his best to be her wingman. It was both hopeless and endearing.

Steve did, as she promised, got the ladies to come in droves to the video store. Steve was more suave than he had been at Scoops Ahoy!, the sailor suit really deterred the ladies; he currently was favoring those shirts Tom Selleck was wearing on “Magnum, P.I.” He spent a lot of his shift flirting, roaming the aisles while returning tapes to the shelves. When the girls of Hawkins asked him for recommendations, most of the time he told them “Back to the Future” or whatever the current posters were; sometimes he would ask her, “What’s that movie with that guy?” or something like that and, at some point, they developed a shorthand or started to use the same brain (her’s obviously) and she would respond with “Oh, yeah, that’s [whatever the answer was].” 

This job was definitely better than Scoops Ahoy!

**Author's Note:**

> I would recommend a lot of these movies. My mom's favorite movie is "Coming Home" and she's about the same age as Joyce. And my parents love James Garner movies. I think Robin, at first, would tell Eleven to watch "Born Yesterday" as a little joke, but really it's a gem of a film. 
> 
> I don't know if all of these movies were available on VHS in 1985 in a small town like Hawkins, Indiana, but I want them to be.
> 
> Also, I work in an AU where Hopper lives.


End file.
